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In 2003, we received a call from
John and Jennifer Randall of West Houston. They had decided to
build a French-style home just off of
Piney Point near Memorial
Drive. Jennifer wanted a modern French landscape design that
reflected the symmetry, balance, and patterns of Old World
estates. French landscapes like this are popular because of
their uniquely proportioned partier gardens,
formal garden and constructions, and tightly clipped hedges.
John also wanted the French landscape design because of his
passion for his heritage (he originally came to Houston from
Louisiana), as well as the obvious aesthetic benefits of
creating a natural complement to the architecture of the new
house.
The first thing we designed was a motor court driveway/parking
area in the front of the home. While you may not think that a
paved element would have anything at all do with landscape
design, in reality it is truly apropos to the theme. French
homes almost always have paving that extends all the way to the
house. In the case of the Randall home, we used interlocking
concrete pavers to create a surface that looks much older than
it really is. This prevented the property from looking too much
like a new construction and better lent itself to the elegance
and stateliness characteristic of French landscape designs in
general.
Further blending of practical function with the aesthetic
elements of French landscaping was accomplished in an area to
the left of the driveway. John loved fishing, and he requested
that we design a convenient parking area to temporarily store
his boat while he waited for a slip at the marina to become
available. Knowing that this area would function only for
temporary storage, we came up with the idea of integrating this
special parking area into the green space of a
parterre garden.
We laid down a graveled area in the shape of a horseshoe that
would easily allow John back up his truck and unload his boat.
We then surrounded this graveled area with a scalloped hedge
characterized by a very bright, light green color. Planting
boxwoods and Holly trees beyond the hedge, we then extended them
throughout the yard. This created a contrast of light and green
ground cover that is characteristic of French landscape designs.
By establishing alternating light and dark shades of color, it
helps establish an unconscious sense of movement which the eye
finds it hard to resist following
Parterre gardens like this are also keynote elements to French
landscape designs, and the combination of such a green space
with the functional element of a paved area serves to elevate
the mundane purpose of a temporary parking and storage area into
an aesthetic in its own right. Also, we deliberately chose the
horseshoe design because we knew this space could later be
transformed into a decorative center for the entire garden. This
is the main reason we used small stones to cover the area,
rather than concrete or pavers. When the boat was eventually
relocated, the darkly colored stones surrounded by a brightly
colored hedge gave us an excellent place to mount an outdoor
sculpture.
The elegance of the home and surrounding French landscape design
warranted attention at all hours so we contracted a lighting
design company to ensure that all important elements of the
house and property were fully visible at night. With
mercury vapor lights concealed in trees, we created
artificial moonlight that shone down on the garden and front
porch. For accent lighting, we used a combination of up lights
and down lights to differentiate architectural features, and we
installed façade lights to emphasize the face of the home
itself.
Although a new construction, this residence achieved such an
aura of stateliness that it earned fame throughout the
neighborhood almost overnight, and it remains a favorite in the
Piney Point area to this day.
For more the 20 years
Exterior Worlds has specialized in servicing many of Houston's
fine neighborhoods.
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